


truth and consequences

by theredhoodie



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Episode fallout, F/M, Pining, tiny plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-10 23:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: Set directly following 2x05.Laura walks away with the intention of never coming back.akaLaura can pretend to ignore everything that happened with the death Loa all she wants but it's most likely going to come and bite her.Sweeney isn't exactly ignoring anything, but he's having a hell of a time coming to terms with just how far he'll go to get Laura her life back.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I just....needed to unpack 2x05 and it turned into this. It's canon up to 2x05 then I go on my own little journey.
> 
> Hope you like it and thanks to **waterfront** here on ao3 for reading through this before I post it to help me out! :D
> 
> I'll be adding more tags as the chapters post!

Laura's boots splashed through puddles as she tried to remember her way back to the main street from the  _Coq Noir_ , a name in which still made her scoff and roll her eyes.

The potion, or whatever the hell it was, rested heavily in her pocket. Where the hell was she going to get  _blood_  from someone? Infused with love, the Baron said. He hadn't been specific.

If it was any love, she could track down Salim, who had a startling love for his God and probably his Jinn too. She liked Salim, and she thought he liked her too, so maybe he'd give her a drop of two.

If it was love  _for her_  well…she was fucked. Wednesday hadn't been lying when he said that shit back at Argus's tower of horror. Shadow didn't love her…not anymore. And even if a tiny part of him did, something told her it wouldn't be enough.  _Infused_  was a strong word.

Her final hope would be her family, her mom maybe, or her sister, but she couldn't exactly roll up to their house, long dead, and beg for some blood from their fingertips. And knowing what little she knew about the Baron, familial love wasn't what was needed for this to supposedly work.

"Fuck," she growled out, clenching her hands into fists at her sides.

She squinted up at the sun out of habit, the feeling of being  _alive_  fading fast. Food and drink, she could just barely taste on the back of her throat. And touch? Well, she was back to numbness. No air on her skin, breath in her lungs. It hadn't lasted the night.

It was…amazing while it lasted. She hadn't realized just how much she missed everything about being alive. The last time she'd felt anything, before Argus, was with Shadow in that damned hotel room and even that was a ghost in comparison to whatever magic the Loa had brewed up.

Kissing Shadow hadn't felt like anything, except the heart in her chest beating. She had barely felt his warmth and then he was gone, disgusted or repulsed, too confused to deal with dead wives covered in scars and stitched up like a fucking doll.

But last night? She felt everything. She really had felt more alive than she had in a long time. Maybe even before she'd died. It was frantic and she didn't know if it was the magic or the fact that she was just desperate to  _feel._

Every part of every touch and sensation was a memory—hell, a memory of a memory, fading away to the point where she could barely hold and grasp it. Like trying to grab water, it disappeared along with with everything else.

She did not, however, want to think about Mad Sweeney. Any part of him or that magical musical chairs sex experience. The thought that he could make her feel anything other than anger and mild amusement was not something she was willing to stake hours of mental debate with herself over.

Instead, she shoved that down and focused on the ache around her barely-there heart because she'd come  _so close_  and she was still dead.

She walked for a while, in circles probably, down streets where nearly every building had pillars out front, and a balcony on the upper floors. Thin, stray dogs crossed her path, and plenty of people sitting on those porches and balconies looked at her strangely, as if they could tell she didn't belong.

She was  _uncanny_.

With no purpose and no final destination, Laura played with the idea of heading back to Cairo, to Shadow, but the thought left the remnants of a bad taste in her mouth. She was desperate, and she had nowhere to go and an impossible quest on her hands, but she was determined not to just give up.

She would not go back to being that girl in the hot tub with motherfucking bug spray.

As long as she kept moving, that wouldn't happen.

But this city was old and confusing, either by nature or on purpose, trying to keep her locked here for some reason. With what she knew of her ever-growing experiences in a world where magic was real, anything was possible. Could a city be sentient? Fuck if she knew.

It started to get creepy though, after a while. A bit quieter, leaves flying in the wind, and…was that children's voices reaching her ears?

Laura was no savior, she rarely went out of her way during life to do anything for anyone—not even for herself if she was being honest—but the sounds of distraught, crying children made her pause. It wasn't the cry for attention, but of pain and fear.

She roamed around in a small circle, twisting hard on a heel over and over, battling with herself. Finally, with a strangled groan of frustration, she followed the sounds.

With a distraction in front of her, she walked down some alleys and then she found herself at the gate of a tall-walled cemetery, filled with tombs and mausoleum. She remembered reading or hearing something on a TV show about them not burying people underground down here. The ground was too soft, too marshy.

How different would her resurrection have been if she had to punch her way out of a granite tomb rather than climb through dirt?

Even though she was dead, she hesitated at the gate. She didn't make the cliched habit of hanging out in graveyards as a living dead woman.

She heard the children—or child it was hard to tell—and took a step over the patchy threshold. She would have held her breath if she had a breath to hold.

It was quiet and dark, as if the world had suddenly gotten muffled and quiet. There were new and old flowers in rings alongside generations of family names, etched into tall, towering tombs. A few low graves were merely stone filled with loam and short grass. Crosses adorned most resting places.

Laura stepped quietly, the loose stones shifting under her dismal weight. The crying no longer seemed to be coming from just one place, but all around her.

The air pushed hair in front of her face and she shivered.

Wait… _shivered_? She shouldn't be able to—

Someone grabbed her from behind, someone who could match her supercharged strength. She struggled but they tossed a bag over her head and then grabbed her, much like Sweeney when they took his shortcut to the train, but more aggressive and whoever it was that had her now was cold and hard, like the stone around her.

She couldn't see or hear anything but crying children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's no point in struggling. She was finally forced down in a chair that was hard as fuck and the bag was yanked off her head.

It took awhile for her eyes to adjust. She wondered how long it would be before they were flat and grey again.

The room was cold and dark and bland. Just a concrete block by the looks of it. So very different from the warm, cluttered  _Coq Noir_. The man sitting across from her didn't evoke the feeling of a living thing, so he must be a god.

"Hello," he said, taking off his fedora. His voice sounded like an echo, a computer-driven program.

"Who are you?" She crossed her arms and her legs and faced him down. She was still pissed, aggravated,  _devastated_  that she's still dead when Sweeney was so certain the Baron could help her. But she was just as dead as the night she gasped out her last breath on the pavement, caught in that moment between life and death.

"You can call me…Mr. World." He talked slowly, like he had to process each word before he said it.

Laura's skin crawled but she sneered to cover up her discomfort. "Mr. World? What are you, Pitbull's evil twin?"

The man, the god, whatever, tilted his head, unprovoked by her wit. "And you're Laura Moon, neé McCabe. Born in Eagle Point, Indiana, twenty seven years ago on July 14th. Died on March 30th of this year in the same town where you spent your entire miserable life."

"Are you the god of wikipedia?" she asked, unimpressed.

"No." Mr. World sat back, his hat upon his knee. "You know Mr. Wednesday."

"Know is a strong word. I hate him. He had me killed. He manipulated me and my husband for…I don't know. Our whole fucking lives probably."

"He does want you out of the picture."

She frowned. "How do you know? And what big picture? I've seen nothing but an old lady shot at a diner."

Mr. World breathed and his face pixelated, briefly. Laura tried to keep her face stoic. "You are a pawn. Your death was a catalyst for Wednesday. Because you sit here today, I think you are important."

Laura shook her head. "Hell no. I want no part in your stupid war. It's not even a war, is it? It's just some stupid fucking pissing contest, measuring dicks and distance."

The god smiled but his smile was wicked and cold and inhuman. "I know you killed some of my men. And you had a part in wrecking my train."

"That was Wednesday."

A door in the corner opened and a few men walked in. One was small, in a bomber jacket, and looked at her like she was a devil incarnate. The other two were…massive to say the least. They looked like they were carved out of blocks of stone, boxy and tall. She wondered how they fit through the doorway.

They all stood silently behind Mr. World.

"My associates and I believe we can offer you something the Old Gods cannot."

Laura snorted. "I'm sorry…the Old Gods haven't offered me jack fucking shit. They've done nothing but kill me  _and_  refuse to help me."

"In that case, we offer you everything they do not."

She frowned, remember that fucked up scene she walked up on between Argus and those strangers. She was a smart girl and chalked those two up as working for the New Gods. Considering they'd let her kill an Old God who's flipped sides, she wasn't sure if either side was better than the other.

They were all untrustworthy.

"Who are they?" she asked instead, nodding her chin toward the newcomers.

Mr. World moved slowly too, deliberately. "Mr. Town, who I think you met on the train. And that is Mr. Dodge and Mr. Ford."

Laura blinked and scoffed, the names settling in. "There are gods of transportation?" She may be impartial in this war, but even she could have opinions. And her opinion was that gods of cars were stupid. She also wondered, for a moment, which of them had  _transported_  her here, since one of the big guys was a logical choice. It had been like being wrapped in cold metal, like a controlled car wreck.

"Yes," Mr. World said, his voice and face tight. "The average idea of what a god is or isn't is changing. The old way of things is fading and we are the future."

"I don't really care either way. I'll be gone in a few weeks at best." The words stung. They were truth, but they were a truth she chose not to acknowledge out loud. Before Argus, Mr. Ibis told her her body could stand for a week at most. After Argus? She wasn't sure, and the Baron nor Brigitte had offered anything other than tricks and the potion in her pocket.

"We can sustain you."

Laura looked at Mr. Ford and Mr. Dodge and noticed how Mr. Town was putting his weight on one foot than the other, back and forth. Either nervous or wanting to wring her neck for whatever damage she did to him on the train. Mr. World gave her the creeps but these other guys? Not so much.

And she realized, that even though she didn't really believe in gods and magic, there had been a fullness, a life to all of those gathered at that diner. The air had sparked and felt  _alive_  even to one as dead as her. The men in front of her now? There was no life in them. They were hard and lacked humanity.

She didn't know what to do with her observation, but she knew she didn't want to be here anymore.

"So I what? Become a pawn for you instead? I'm not doing that." She stood, the chair scraping back. Mr. Town jumped. Mr. Dodge blocked the whole goddamn door.

Mr. World stood slowly, reminding her of a snake, getting itself prepared to strike an enemy, coiled and ready.

"I've killed gods before," Laura said, though there was just the one that she knew of, unless one of those guys on the train were gods, or those faceless things in the field torturing Shadow were gods, but it didn't matter. She had the power of a god sustaining her. "You can't keep me here."

"You're right," Mr. World said. He moved his hand fractionally, and Mr. Dodge stepped aside, revealing a door. "We do ask that you consider our offer. There  _will_  be a winning side to this war, whether you think so or not."

Laura pursed her lips and shrugged. "Don't care."

Mr. World hummed. It sounded similar to an electrical hum of a generator and it aggravated her the way nails down a chalkboard would. "I think you will. War is coming."

"Good luck with that," she said, walking to the door. Her hand touched the doorknob and then she was bagged and painfully squeezed by the arms of who she assumed was Mr. Dodge. "Are you kidding me!" She gasped out before she ended up being tossed out of what felt like a moving vehicle.

They left the bag on her head, which she ruefully tugged off. It couldn't have been past mid-day, and she was on a road that wasn't where she'd been found. No one was around. She sat up and noticed that her trip had left her wounded. But she didn't bleed or scar like normal people. Her skinned leg was just ripped flesh.

Laura sat there in the long grass and gravel, her body going through the motions of breathing even though she didn't need to. She threw aside the black fabric in hand and reached her hand into her pocket.

The vial, with its scripted words down the side, was still there, the stopper still in the top.

Her own mortality was laid out pretty plainly in front of her. A body that would fail her sooner rather than later. The tease of living. The  _cost_  of it not working. The unfeasible quest for blood infused with love…love probably  _for_  her, which wasn't going to be easy.

Laura lay back in the pokey grass and closed her eyes.

Imagine, if she'd never met Shadow. Imagine, if she hadn't spent her life carefully compartmentalizing her emotions to the extent that she didn't even feel anymore. Imagine, if she had actually felt alive while she had breath in her lungs and blood in her veins.

She lay there and wished she could sleep. She missed that, just being  _gone_  for eight hours a day, not having to think or feel or make choices.

She lay there and tried to think of nothing but since when did that ever work for anyone? The sun warmed her and the humidity in the air collected on her flesh. It was different here, she didn't feel alive, she felt like a corpse crisping up in a field.

So she thought about that fucked-up dream-space, and she thought about Mad Sweeney. He must have been off fucking Brigitte while she was fucking the Baron and then…well she didn't have a history of magically changing sex partners mid-coitous but it wasn't the strangest thing to happen to her since she died.

She hadn't, even for the briefest moment, thought to stop.

She could  _feel_  him but it was so much more than just the physical hoops one jumped through with sex. Hell, she wasn't sure if she remembered him actually fucking her, or if it was all just in their heads—a riling, rolling wave of transcended bodies and magic.

Her world in that moment was Mad Sweeney's hands on her hips and his skin under her hands and his eyes eating her up with an intensity she'd never faced before. And that was it.

She liked it and she wanted it and fuck it all if she didn't want it again.

"Ma'am? Miss? Excuse me?" A small, Southern voice broke her thoughts.

Laura cracked open an eye against the bright sun to see an old black man with missing teeth and white tufts of hair leaning over her.

"Oh, phew. Thought you'd be dead."

She said nothing.

"You okay, ma'am?"

"Where am I?" she asked, sitting up and squinting. Bits of dry grass was stuck in her hair.

"You're 'bout an hour outside o' New Orleans. Ya needin' some help?"

That was the question, wasn't it? She always needed some help because she was  _dead_  and she couldn't very well save herself. At least not according to the laws of magic and gods.

"I can give ya a ride if ya need it."

Laura stood up, shaking out her ill fitting dress. It hid the scrapes on her legs, the ones that would need stitches to keep her skin together rather than peeling slowly away from her bones and muscles. "Where are you headed?"

"South to NOLA, ma'am."

A cloud moved across the sun, shading them momentarily. This felt like a pivotal moment in her life, like one of those perfectly executed themes in a movie about a person finally making a right decision and heading on a good path. But life wasn't a movie and Laura continued to make shitty decisions. But maybe this once she'd just take up what was laid out in front of her.

"A ride would be great," she said, forcing on a smile.

The man motioned toward a rust colored truck. "Name's Reggie," he said, climbing in.

She pulled the door shut behind her and settled into the well worn-seat. "Laura."

"Laura. Okay." He started the truck and took to the road. "What were ya doin' laid out there, Miss Laura?"

She crossed her arms and watched the road in front of them. She thought about her answer for probably too long. Old Gods, old  _things_  tended to speak in riddles, never giving straight answers, but she didn't need to be a genius to figure out the Baron's conversation with her while he mixed up her potion. "Facing the truth, I guess," she said softly in the cab of the truck.

"Huh. Helluva place to do it. Most folks jus' go ta church."

"I'm not really church going," she said, rubbing her chest over where a shiny piece of gold sat.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now a break for Sweeney. 
> 
> The following chapters will all be pretty short compared to the first one! I plan on posting the whole of this fic before 2x07 airs on April 21st!

Sweeney's lighter continued to spew sparks. He found leftover matches to light up a smoke and he stood in the empty, cluttered place.

This was his last move. If anyone else had killed Laura or asked for her death, Easter would have probably happily and quickly brought her back to life. But she was a sacrifice, for Grimnir, and that's all there was to it.

He was sure that the Loa could do it. But apparently the fuck not.

How little the dead wife knew, when she blamed this all on Wednesday. Wednesday had wanted her dead and to stay dead. Her being walking and talking went against the god's plans and he would have preferred her to rot away to nothing.

Sweeney'd stuck his neck out and used up favors and made deals and still came up short.

"Colossal fucking waste of time," he muttered, kicking one of the low wooden chairs at one of the tables before he walked out. The door swung shut behind him and he yanked on his jacket with aggravated, jerky movements.

He stood under the swinging wooden sign and adjusted his collar. "Fuck," he muttered, knowing he should go after her. He took a lot of shit from her and she tossed around the word  _coward_  without realizing how deep it stung. Or perhaps that was exactly why she used it. She knew he ran from battle.

It was a perfect way to get under his skin.

He didn't have some kind of magical GPS to find his coin, but he could usually tell a general direction.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath as he headed east.

The morning had definitely not gone in any sort of way that he expected after walk-of-shaming back to the  _Coq Noir_  and finding Laura, still dead and pissed. She shovelled her entire emotional spiel on him and blamed him—and Wednesday—for everything.

It was really par for the course but fucking hell, he was  _trying_.

He wandered around, sipping his flask and flicking cigarettes away angrily when they burned to his fingertips—lighting them, of course, with the swiped matches since his Zippo decided to stay useless. He didn't try very hard  _not_  to think about Laura's opened mouthed surprise at finding herself in his arms and her desire to stay there  _with him_  palpable in the air and the way her tiny hips fit into his hands and…

"Shit," he hissed, sliding his boot right into a pile of dog crap on the sidewalk. Cursing, he scraped off the sole and glared at the world and flipped off a raven—it was just a normal bird, but it still reminded him of Grimnir and his failings—and realized the feeling of his coin was so faint he couldn't tell which direction to go in.

He cursed loudly at the sky and threw out his arms. "Fucking fine! I can take a fucking hint." He didn't really know if he was yelling at the universe as a whole, or the dead wife, but he turned around and headed back to the Baron's because he may as well yell at someone about the breaking of a deal.

Sweeney's luck was definitely many miles away. On his way back, he tripped over a crack in the sidewalk—oldest bad luck in the book—and got attacked by a cat for no reason whatsoever.

By the time he made it back to the dead  _OPEN_  sign, he was in need of a drink and a fight.

So he sat and drank and smoked and wondered how the hell he'd managed to catch feelings for a dead woman. He'd had feelings aplenty—guilt mostly, because he may have killed many during his long life, but they had never felt so much like  _murder_ —and apparently they'd spiraled far beyond his control.

He'd take them back if he could, because Laura was not the easiest person to even be in the general vicinity of. She was nasty and mean and selfish, which wasn't all that far off from Sweeney himself if he was being honest.

The plain fact of the matter was she didn't take any of his shit and it'd been a while since he'd met his match with a sharp tongue. She had more anger bottled up in her tiny frame than seemed humanly possible.

He found himself with the misfortune of doing literally  _anything_  for her. He was aware of it, bending rules, going against Wednesday, cashing in all of his favors. He'd taken her through the hoard for fuck's sake.

It'd been a long time since he'd been invested in anyone else but himself. He hadn't realized just how easy it was to slip.

Sweeney clunked down half a bottle of rum and Brigitte swayed her way out of some back corner. "Hey there, baby. Where's your girl?"

"She's not here," he said, staying put at the table. "And she's still dead."

Brigitte made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat.

"She's still dead, which was not the agreement," Sweeney emphasized.

"It worked," Samedi said, also appearing out of a shadowy back corner.

"She ain't alive. I don't see how that  _worked_."

"You gonna pay for that?" Brigitte asked, swiping the bottle he'd nabbed out of his reach. Sweeney shook out a small pile of gold coins onto the tabletop. She put the bottle back.

"I gave her what she needs," the Baron told him. Brigitte laughed in that  _way_  that she did and busied herself among the herbs behind the counter in the far end of the room.

"What's that supposed to mean? What was last night then?" Sweeney asked. Samedi was a friend and he wasn't itching to make an enemy of a death Loa but he was feeling pretty fucking used. Wednesday had wrung him dry and he was sick of being treated like some second thought errand boy, strung out fore usefulness while people still believed in little-men-in-green who lived at the end of rainbows.

Samedi chuckled. "Oh, she needed that, too. As did you."

Sweeney huffed and drank. "Is that it then?"

"Yes. She has what she needs. She will live again, if she truly desires it."

Brigitte came up behind him and rested her hands on his tense shoulders, leaning close. "Don't discredit my prediction. She will ruin you, mon cherie."

Sweeney grabbed the bottle and stood. "Aye, and I think I can handle it."

He left them with his gold and a favor they could call in when they desired. They laughed amongst themselves long after the door shut behind him.

Outside, he worked his way back through town, finding very little bad luck his way, which had to mean Laura was close. He already wanted to take back his muttered curse, her face coming back to him from morning. She'd looked devastated before he opened his mouth, like she'd just gotten the worst news in the world.

Which she had. She was still dead.

The news was pretty damning for him too, because if she did die for good, that would be his fault. Because he'd already made it his fucking quest to save her. Whether she wanted his help or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying so hard to stay as canonically in character as possible and I hope I'm succeeding.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potentially the most OOC chapter of them all but look...staying canonical is hard folks. I hope you enjoy this installment!

Laura got dropped off in the center of town after a reasonably nice ride in which Reggie talked and she listened and she didn't have to fight anyone or try to figure out her place in this upcoming war that the gods were so desperate to have.

She wondered around, trying to find that damned bar and found that she couldn't. So she asked around until she'd said  _cocks_  too many times and no one knew what she was talking about and she eventually stopped dead in the middle of a street and screamed.

It felt good, to let go for a moment that didn't involve lying still in a field, but embracing the stir of her emotions which were the only thing left that reminded her of living. Which was a shitty deal. She'd prefer her heart beating over emotions twisting up inside of her.

It was mid-day though, and someone heard her and came to see what was wrong and she scurried off to find herself on a busy street, lined with idealistic little shops, the ones that always popped into people's heads when they thought of New Orleans.

Instead of wandering, she sat down at an iron table on the sidewalk, which was probably part of a cafe but no one bugged her so she stayed. She bobbed her leg because it felt like something she should do, like something a living person would do.

After a while, she plucked the murky green liquid out of her pocket. It hadn't changed. If it had an expiration date, she couldn't read it. The Baron had said a lot of stuff about love and truth and fucking but it didn't seem to do any good in giving her what she needed.

"And what might that be?"

Laura sighed and sat back and watched Mad Sweeney sit himself down at her table. "None of your business," she said, hiding the bottle away. He still looked like hell, face bruised and hair messed and wearing that ridiculous and hideous shirt. "What are you doing here anyway? I thought I told you I was done with you and Wednesday and this whole fucking thing."

"You did."

"Then fuck off." Her words had no bite and she glared off across the street, tracing her eyes over the decal on a shop window. She had no intentions of leaving. She was here first.

He lit a cigarette and made no move to leave either.

"You know," she said, because she couldn't keep her fucking mouth shut, "I used to like Wednesdays. I was always here for hump day jokes. But now? Fuck Wednesday and Wednesdays."

"I told you Wednesday had nothing to do with last night."

"I know." She'd figured that out, after her outburst, after Mr. World got her, while she was lying by the road. Why would Wednesday  _help_  her? He wanted her dead. The only reason he  _helped_  charged her coin was because he needed Argus dead. He'd played her and she'd let him. So maybe, just maybe, Mad Sweeney was actually trying to help her. He was just failing miserably at it. "He's still the reason I'm like this. Still the reason why I got picked up by Mr. World and his massive fucking flunkies."

That perked him up. Sweeney twisted in his seat and leaned against the tabletop. "What?"

She couldn't really bear to look at him just now and wished against everything that she had a cigarette of her own to handle and smoke just to give her something to do. Emotions squirmed inside of her. Or maybe that was just the maggots. "I got picked up by Mr. World. Piece of shit leader of the New Gods."

"Why? Why'd he want you?"

"The fuck if I know." Laura waved a hand, fingers poised for an invisible cigarette. "He wanted me to join their side of the war because apparently I piss off Wednesday just enough for them to think I'm valuable."

"You're not."

She looked at him, eyes wide. "Wow," she scoffed.

He shook his head. "I mean you're nothing to Wednesday now. You did what he wanted you to do."

Laura pressed her lips together. She hadn't told him about Argus, but he was as perceptive as he was nearly perpetually drunk so she shouldn't be surprised he could figure shit out on his own. Either that or he was just talking about her dying and then pushing Shadow well the fuck away from her and into Wednesday's awaiting arms. "It doesn't matter. I don't give two fucks about Wednesday. Or this war. I told Mr. World to fuck off and he let me go."

That seemed to simmer him down. He sat back and looked at her and she looked everywhere but at him. She missed the distractions of the flies buzzing around her head.

"What do you need?" he asked after a while, like he'd been wrestling with himself for a few minutes on whether or not to speak.

She frowned and glanced at him. "What?"

"Samedi told me he gave you what you needed to get your life back." He waved a hand. "Obviously you need something else or you'd be alive right now, wouldn't you?"

Laura swallowed and squeezed her hands into fists. "You can't help me. I'm pretty sure I'm fucked."

She spared a look at him. He looked tired, and not just from a wild night. He rubbed his face with his hands. "I didn't do any of this for Wednesday," he said, his voice remarkably soft. He didn't even call her a derogatory name.

It almost made her uncomfortable. She liked the wall of anger and insults they built up between each other. It was a comfortable space she could always count on. This vulnerability was parallel to being tossed in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. Or being tossed into the arms of another man without warning.

"I'm not gonna fucking beg to let me help you."

The corners of her lips twitched up and she turned slowly in the seat to fully face him. "Did you know that was going to happen? The fucking."

"They're Loa so…it comes with the territory." He sucked in a breath and licked his lips and cleared his throat before continuing. "Some of it was a surprise."

She knew jack shit about anything god or deity like. She really needed to take a Gods of America 101 course. "Was that your truth, or mine?" she asked, crossing her arms, leaning against the table.

_You want to yell at me_ , she thought at him, hoping she had somehow gained telepathic powers in her most recent semi-revival.  _You want to yell at me and make this easier._

He did no such thing. "Does it matter?"

Did it? She didn't really know. She could handle the thought of him wanting to sleep with her. She was pretty used to most guys having a one-track mind. But if it was somehow a truth of her own, buried under unresolved anger at his part in her death and everything that's come after…that was harder to process.

She didn't want, nor think she needed emotions like that.

Laura was no longer being kept together with stitches, yet she felt more broken than ever at the prospect of having  _feelings_. How fucked up was that?

Sweeney got up when she didn't answer and nodded and motioned for her to follow. "Let's go."

"Where?" She felt tired now too, and the thought of emotions riled up her stomach, or whatever was the equivalent these days.

"We're not gonna find the key to life sitting here at this fucking cafe, now are we?"

She stood and walked toward the corner, where an embedded flower bed made of stone sat along the bricks of the neighboring building. She grabbed her hair and threw up nothing but bile and maggots and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

All thoughts and memories of being  _almost alive_  last night were dwindling.

She refused to meet his eyes and swept passed him, leading the way to nowhere with his footsteps following.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Where were you going?" Sweeney asked after they'd made it away from the growing crowds swelling through old NOLA.

Laura shrugged, her arms crossed. For protection. She did it when she needed to be on guard and she'd been doing it a lot lately. "Away from you. To Shadow, maybe." She frowned when she said it because it sounded  _wrong_.

That didn't stop him from narrowing his eyes a little though. He took a drag from the cigarette between his fingertips. "What for?"

"Dunno. To say goodbye maybe. I feel like I owe him that much."

"Fuck that. He gave you up for Wednesday."

"Everyone keeps saying that," she sighed.

"If he gave a shit about you at all, he'd be the one dragging his ass around the country trying to get your fucking life back." Her footsteps stopped and he walked a couple more paces before he turned back. "What now?" he squawked out.

Laura looked at him a bit like that morning: a little bit bewildered, a little bit overwhelmed. He had—without realizing it, obviously—mentioned he cared about her. And it hit her like a ton of bricks to the face. No one had cared about her in a very long time. Her and Audrey's friendship had crumbled with Shadow's time in jail, before she'd started sleeping with Robbie. And Shadow? His caring came through a phone line. No one had given a shit about her since she died. And she'd been okay with that, until now.

"I think I should still go," she said, balling up her hands and holding them at her sides. She frowned and took a step back. "I shouldn't have come back to New Orleans."

He let out a sharp breath and glanced around, checking for…witnesses? She didn't know. "Are you fucking kidding me?" His voice was raised.

She reminded herself that she'd asked for this. If he yelled at her and pushed her away, it would be fine. It would all be  _fine_. She could then go die in fucking peace. She tried very hard not to cry. What the fuck was up with her emotions? Her taste of life had fucked her up big time.

"You know what, I should have expected this. You're such a selfish, fucking cunt."

"Yeah," she said, with a tight smile that broke her a little bit. "That's me. And you're just a fucking coward who won't just go the fuck away. I told you I don't want to be around you anymore."

"Oh yeah?" He stepped closer. She had to tilt her head back. "Why didn't you just fuck off at the cafe, huh?"

Laura blinked and focused. She wouldn't let him  _win_. "You're such an asshole." Her voice was low and cold. "Where the fuck are we even going? Do you even know?"

"No! I don't! We're just walking until you tell me what you need!" He yelled right in her face.

There was too much shit to sort through. Laura's emotions had never been this wild when she was alive. When she was living, she was impulsive but collected and calculated and she never took shit from people but she also never let herself become emotionally heated.

Dad got drunk and her parents fought behind closed doors when she was a kid? She'd ignore it and keep her mouth shut and tell everyone things were fine. Shadow went to prison? Her face was dry. Cat died? She shed a tear perhaps, into her wine, and then fucked her best friend's husband because it was easy and it was something to do. It wasn't hurting anyone. She crawled out of her own grave? She had a husband to get back to, cut and clear. She never planned on Shadow's rejection or Mad Sweeney quite literally smashing his way into her life.

Living around people was easy. Loving people was hard. She'd never gotten the hang of it.

Not that this was love but it was…something.

Her eyes glossed over in what was probably her last reserved tears. "I don't want to...feel this way," she said, which took effort.

"Boo hoo." He looked down at her. "Who's the coward now?"

Laura blinked and choked down a retort, biting her lips to keep from speaking. She crossed her arms and held her ground, because she may be having an after-death-crisis but that didn't mean she was a pushover. She was a cold hearted bitch in life and continued to perpetrate that reputation in death. Literally.

He sighed out a lungful of smoke and flicked the remnants of paper and ash into the road. "Just tell me what the fuck you need," he said again, a little softer but not by much.

She was as desperate as desperate got. She wanted him to be able to just breath life back into her, as easy as that. His luck, his coin, was sustaining her already, it wouldn't be that far of a stretch, would it?

But that wasn't how this worked.

"It's impossible," she said, taking a step back. She needed  _space_. "And I need to go."

He went to protest again, so she hit him. Not hard, but he flew back far enough that he lay in a groaning, crumpled heap.

Before she could make another bad decision—at this point, she wasn't sure even what the difference was between her good and bad decisions—she ran off. Quite literally, to put as much space between them as she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sweeney: I HAVE FEELINGS!  
> laura: *stares at the camera like in the office and jumps out a window*


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweeney has a Bad Time.

There was no way in fucking hell he was going after her a second time. Deal be damned.

He stayed on the ground until the sun blinded him before he got up. He couldn't see Laura from where he was and he chose to believe that she was  _gone_.

Sweeney didn't know why she'd flipped, though he guessed he should have expected it. He thought they were going to go off and figure out what to do to get her life back, as their deal said they would. But she was in a habit of breaking deals, wasn't she?

He got up and headed north, back to Cairo, because that seemed to be the place to be at the moment. Wednesday was after Gungnir and had Shadow on a leash. He had plans that no one was privy to and that meant that Sweeney probably had shit he was gonna have to do for the bastard.

Laura's words cut through his brain, all about Wednesday and cowardice and he growled and kicked the road to little avail and kept walking.

It took a few days of bad luck—starting small like stubbing his toe, getting picked up by a family of Mormons, finding hair in his food, and ended up with him witnessing someone  _else_  steal a car in a parking lot but getting blamed and having to dodge the police for a good twenty-four hours before he crossed state lines and got away. He got a sliver from a park bench at a shitty roadside food truck. Countless animal attacks of all kinds. And eventually, it started to peeter off. He hadn't realized where he was going until it was too late.

He wasn't heading toward Cairo. At least not in any direct way. He was following the goddamned dead wife without realizing it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweeney stood there, fully aware he looked like a fucking creep, just far enough away to not be seen, but he could still see through the windows into the brightly lit shop, past the decals and signs, to catch a glimpse of a bored face. He smoked cigarettes and drank from his flask and  _felt_  the closeness of his coin.

He could feel that his luck was close, and it made him relax.

Inside the shop, Laura tilted her head at the sound of someone walking in. She didn't even bother plastering on a customer service smile, swiveling on what must have been a stool and hoping out of view to ring up beer and cheetos for some kid who was most likely using a fake ID.

Once the door clanged shut, she got back onto the seat and lit a Virginia Slim and squinted out in his general direction.

He stepped a bit farther out of the light and muttered a, "Fuck" under his breath. He'd never say it out loud, and hardly confessed it to himself in the night, that he'd come this way for  _her_  first and his coin second.

"Well I'll be," an unwelcome voice said suddenly, coming up beside him.

Sweeney closed his eyes and clenched his jaw and sighed through his nose. "Fuck off," he said.

Wednesday chuckled and looked pointedly from the large leprechaun to the dead girl in the window and back again. "Playing Peeping Tom? Didn't think that was quite your style."

"What the fuck do you want, Grimnir?"

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. The country is stirring, after Zorya's death. Can't you feel it?" He sounded giddy.

Sweeney narrowed his eyes and puffed on another cigarette instead. "You've got your fucking war. Good on you."

"Ah. A battle for me is a battle for you. Or don't you need to repay that debt still?"

"Aye, and I will."

Wednesday huffed and turned back to Laura, who walked outside to put out the end of her cigarette under her boot by the open door. Sweeney tried to tell if she looked worse than the last time he'd seen her, telling himself to expect the rot to return.

"Oh shit," Wednesday said with a laugh, uncharacteristically crass. "Did you perhaps sleep with Miss Laura Moon, Mad Sweeney?"

He went with his usual answer: "Fuck off."

"Interesting," the old man said under his breath before he clapped a gnarled but strong hand down on Sweeney's shoulder. "Come with me."

"Not a chance," he said incredulously.

"I've got something else for you to do."

Sweeney's expression darkened.

Wednesday saw, stepped back and held up his hands in surrender. "No death involved, this time. Scout's honor. You owe  _me_  and I'm giving you a battle, aren't I?"

Sweeney swallowed. Caught between a rock and a fucking hurricane he was. Nowhere good to go. Wednesday took his silence as agreement and started walking. Sweeney hesitated, eyes catching a glimpse of Laura through the window.

He knew Wednesday was gonna fuck with her if he said no. Grimnir was a fucking bastard who could play people better than anyone else he knew. Sweeney could push buttons, but Grimnir could slice through layers.

Instead of subjecting Laura to whatever fucked up shit Wednesday would do to her, he muttered a curse into the night and followed the short, old man into the awaiting car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweeney blasted the heat in the piece of shit on wheels he'd swiped as he headed north. Wednesday had given him a roll of money and an address in a town called Lakeside.

"Just put the money down on this apartment for me. I'll follow in a few days and make myself known around town," Wednesday said.

"Where're you going?" Sweeney had asked.

"I've still got an army to build. Gods to con and goddesses to seduce." Wednesday grinned and was gone.

Alone in his car, Sweeney cursed out the Old God but kept driving. It got steadily colder the farther he drove and the heater in the car did little to save his balls from freezing. It was an unhelpful clunker and he had to keep stopping to fill the engine with fluids of one form or another and changing or stealing tires when they popped. The heater gave out a few hours away from his destination, his bad luck seeping back in.

A trail of cigarette butts and convenience food wrappers followed him to Lakeside.

There was a lake he could see from a mile out, no fucking wonder, and then he took the bridge into town. The second the tires of the car touched the bridge, he felt a wave of magic, old and bloody, pass through him like a force field.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. He  _knew_  that feeling and he instantly wanted to go back in time and punch Wednesday square in the face for making him come all the way up here and be even in the same vicinity as this particular kobold.

Sweeney remembered him from the old countries, back when he traveled a bit here and there from his small island and heard rumors of such creatures in the Black Forest.

He cursed his way into town and found the bland building that he was meant to rent for Grimnir. The ground was hard under foot and no snow had fallen, but it was still cold as fucking hell. His breath came out as puffs of steam in front of his face.

Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, he stepped up to the porch platform and peered inside the empty apartment. It looked like a piece of shit. The blinds were all drawn down at the adjoining apartment. He knocked on that door.

A minute later, a woman with long black hair pulled open the door a crack. "Who are you? What do you want?" She narrowed her eyes at him, her words defensive and clipped.

He slapped on a charming smile, which had never failed him in the past. "Hey there, sorry to bother you. I'm interested in the empty place next door."

The woman narrowed her dark eyes at him. "Go into town. I can't help you." And then she shut the door.

"Bitch," he muttered before he turned back around. His car nearly didn't start, but it did on the third try. In the center of town, the grass was brown, readying itself for the winter.

It took some searching, but he eventually put money and a fake name down for the place Grimnir wanted. Everyone here was chatty and comfortable. Sweeney couldn't shake the feeling of the hair on his neck standing on end. He wanted out of this place as soon as fucking possible.

Perhaps it was bad luck or penance, but he somehow got roped into having a drink with local law enforcement, who liked him more than any other cop he'd ever met. One drink turned into many turned into him waking up next to a woman whose name he didn't remember and whose cat swiped at his face the second he opened his eyes and he hightailed it out of there.

Only to get stalled on that fucking bridge.

"Stupid! Piece! Of! Fucking! Garbage!" he yelled, kicking the car to emphasize every word. The morning was slow to come, the sun barely peeking into the sky.

A damn nice car pulled up next to him, a classic. If Sweeney gave a shit about cars, he'd have been impressed.

"Need some help there, friend?" an old man behind the wheel asked. He stopped the car and got out.

It took a few beats for Sweeney to realize the stomach boiling nausea he felt was coming from this white haired fuck. "Stay the fuck away," he said, holding out a hand with a finger raised, pointing, as if that could stop anyone.

The man stopped, put his gloved hands into his coat's pockets and rolled back onto the heels of his winter boots. "I see. Wednesday sent you, did he?"

Sweeney swallowed hard. "Yes."

"He'll be coming soon?"

"Far as I know." All he wanted to get the fuck out of this place that was dripping in the blood of the innocent. He could  _feel_  it in the air. He was all for death magic and sacrifice, he knew how gods and deities ticked, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Especially this fucker in particular. His skin crawled. He wanted out of this fucking town.

"Okay then." The old man smiled and then got serious. "I could keep you here. I am." He motioned to the car behind Sweeney.

"For once in my whole bloody fucking life, I'm not looking for a fight," Sweeney insisted. "Let me go. Your business with Wednesday is none of mine."

"Hmm." The man peered up at him in all of his shivering glory. "S'pose not. I'll let you go."

Sweeney didn't wait around. He got into his car and found it started on the first go. He didn't stoop to his usual antics as he passed the bundled up old kobold on the road and finally felt like he could take a fucking breath once he was over the bridge.

He cursed Wednesday and couldn't shake the sick feeling in his bones, even a couple hundred miles away. He slept in the car in warmer temperatures and had twisting, dark, sick dreams that drove him even farther south until the car finally gave out when a bird decided to kill itself in the grill and blow one of the lines under the hood.

Not quite in Cairo, but Sweeney didn't care. He'd done as Grimnir asked and, as far as he was concerned, he'd done it for Laura. Which twisted every fucking thing around because he was a self-preserving bastard and he knew it. Had been for centuries now.

It took a bottle of Southern Comfort for the twist of emotion in his stomach to go away. He'd never once in his whole god damned life felt guilty about sleeping with a single woman and yet that freaky little town had caught him at a low and now he was thinking of Laura and how he kind of wanted her to take his own frustrations out on himself. Just…hand them over to her and get her angry and have her beat him up a little bit.

Or that was the alcohol running through his veins.

In any case, Laura wasn't  _here_  so he got someone else to beat him up. It was his last stroke of luck to find someone willing to pummel him and get a few hits in return. It was far from his luck when he was finally kicked out, not nearly drunk enough as he wanted.

After washing his bloody face off with a freezing cold hose hanging on the side of a nearby building, he bought himself another bottle and drank some more.

It was getting later by the minute and the police were nowhere to stop him from downing a bottle and stumbling for a breather on the side of the street, nestled between two buildings. His coin was far away, his luck running thin, his personal belief hanging by a thread.

"Oh, you're getting a kick out of this," he said to nothing and everything, before his elbow slipped and he fell flat on his back on the cold concrete, knocking the air out of his lungs.

The bottle in his hand was empty and he tossed it aside. It didn't shatter, but it skidded under the nearby dumpster. It was cold in the night, but still warmer than Lakeside.

Sweeney blinked up at the stars, twinkling in the night. They were different from the stars he remembered quite intensely, back when he actually held power, was respected and honored by humans and gods alike.

And here he was, up to his neck in debts, lost the one thing he had in the world, without a single fucking thing left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized now that I never had any real Sweeney/Laura interactions in Sweeney's POV for this fic and I'M SORRY! Missed opportunities.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the conclusion! I hope y'all enjoy it! :D

Laura hitched her way  _away_. Once he was out of sight and she calmed down, she realized that it wasn't so much Sweeney's feelings  _for her_  that made her run. She enjoyed having people invested in her life, loving her and paying attention to her; that's why she married Shadow, wasn't it? And other people's emotions were easily molded and easy to accept.

Her own emotions, however, were all over the fucking place and she hated it. She ranted to the universe, about Wednesday and Shadow and Sweeney; anyone who had ever let her emotions slip from their perfectly formed place in her mind, to something vivid and wild and raw. It didn't happen often. She prided herself in her self-control when it came to emotional outbursts.

By the time she was dropped off in some random town, she was feeling cold and alone and yet she had to face up to her choice to leave.

It wasn't like Sweeney came running after her, was it?

She didn't want to go to Shadow. Something  _stung_  when she thought about him now. She didn't know what it was; if Wednesday told her the truth and it broke that part of her that  _knew_  she was here for Shadow, or if Shadow himself had finally let her go and she somehow felt that through some cosmic connection.

In any case, she didn't go back to Cairo.

She soon realized that she'd been relying on Sweeney for money during their roadtrip adventures. She couldn't just steal  _everything_ , and with no purpose laid out in front of her, she decided to get a job.

It wasn't glamorous. She went somewhere that didn't ask for an ID and that needed someone for the graveyard shift.

"It's perfect," she said, when the store owner hesitantly offered up the hours of ten to seven, since they were open 24 hours a day.

The owner liked how she didn't ask for any breaks and he never came in to her having eaten food without paying for it.

It was boring and during the day she sat at the nearby diner and read magazines and ran her thumb over the vial that she always kept with her. She bought some new clothes and made faces when she had to sew up the skin on her leg. She wasn't as dead as she used to be, but as the days passed, the flies started buzzing and she wondered just how long it would before she had to either go off to die permanently or potentially find Mr. World and see what he had to offer.

She expected— _hoped_?—that Sweeney would show up. And after a few days of that, she would take anyone showing up. Any god, any deity, even Shadow.

There was half a family of flies taking residence in the air around her now and Laura was pretty certain she was going to get fired because of it. But she was going to try to squeeze out another shift.

Midnight crawled around and she looked up to the bell over the door sounding off. To her surprise, the woman who walked in was the woman who'd kissed her at the diner that'd gotten shot up, weeks before. She was beautiful even under the gross fluorescent lighting, decked out in gaudy jewelry and a deep V-cut dress.

"Hi," Laura said, uncertain and yet pretty happy to see a familiar face.

"Hello," Bilquis responded, walking to the counter. "What has befallen you to force you to work here?"

"Not forced. I just...I needed something to do." Her whole afterlife was stuffed into a small bag she'd bought: two outfits, extra money, the Baron's vial. Her most treasured item was still lodged in her chest.

"I see. And your eyes…" Bilquis reached forward and gently put her fingers under Laura's chin. Laura's eyes were taking on a grey hue once again. "You are still clinging to life, but it's leaving you again."

"It's a vicious cycle," Laura admitted.

"Do you have any way to fix it?"

The conversations Laura had had recently were short: she told off a lot of guys and made small talk. She found herself desperately wanting to tell this woman, who knew about gods and magic and all that shit, about the potion that was supposed to save her. So she did, in as few words as possible.

Bilquis smiled, her cheeks round and her smile white. "Did you know that I am a goddess of love?"

"I did not."

"Yes. And I know that there are many types of love. Perhaps you have what you need already but you don't know it."

"That'd be nice but everyone I know hates me."

"Perhaps."

"Is this when you tell me that if I just  _love myself_  everything will work out? Because I'm pretty far from loving myself these days."

Bilquis said nothing of the sort. She pressed her palms together and then let her arms fall to her sides. "There is another way to keep you alive for now, if you were interested."

She was, but an alarm bell went off in Laura's head. "Are you…do you work for Mr. World?"

Bilquis shrugged a shoulder and somehow made it look sultry. "Not in such a word. But he thought a familiar face may help you decide."

"Decide what exactly?"

"To take him up on his offer."

Laura wondered how much Bilquis knew about this offer. "I won't take him up on his offer until I know that he has something that will actually keep me from decomposing in a week."

A flash of sadness passed the goddesses eyes. "I will take you to him, and he will show you."

Laura thought about it. It wasn't like she had many options left. She didn't want to choose a side in this war; the only side she chose was her own. Wednesday was right: she would do anything to get her life back, even at the sake of hurting others, of betraying them.

"Okay," she said finally. "I need to finish my shift." The obligation made her feel a little less guilty.

"I will wait until morning," Bilquis said and she left, leaving Laura feeling sour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The limo felt otherworldly and wrong, but at least she wasn't being bagged and hugged by a god of transportation. Bilquis told her little of what to expect and seemed to be unimpressed with the car and a little sad to see Laura in it.

They drove for a long time until they stopped and the door opened.

"Go on," Bilquis said when Laura hesitated.

"You're not coming with me?" she asked, a flicker of fear in her chest.

"No."

Laura got out and pushed away any small, weak feelings because she was going up against Mr. World and she needed all her wits and confidence about her.

They were in front of a building that was ostentatious and classic looking. She was shown inside, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with a bag hanging at her side. The place was an empty theater filled with sound. A movie or music was going on somewhere as she was walked through gold and crimson.

Mr. World was sitting alone at a table, laid out with untouched food and wine.

Laura sat down and didn't touch anything. "You got me here," she said, speaking first and fast. "I'm not doing anything for you until I know that you can keep me alive."

Mr. World smiled like someone who had never smiled before. "I can. A little magic stolen from Wednesday himself."

Laura narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"The Old Gods are innately human, are they not? Sometimes they need something to keep themselves going and Wednesday hogs this particular speciality for himself only."

It didn't surprise her. Wednesday was a fucking bastard. "What is it?"

Mr. World moved slowly, picking up one of the wine glasses that looked to be filled with water, though there was a hint of red in it. He handed it to her, his face screwed up in discomfort at the thought of handing something to someone, especially someone dead like herself.

Flies buzzing in her ears, she took the glass. She sniffed it and smelled nothing.

"It was a little difficult to get. One of the waters watchers was…injured. I hope you don't mind the taste of blood."

"I'm dead," she said flatly. "I can't taste anything."

She lifted the glass, hesitated and then drank. She meant to just take a sip, but she found herself unable to stop, compelled beyond her control to drink the whole glass without pause. Some spilled onto her shirt and pants. She coughed once it was empty and set it down.

Cold flowed through her and she could  _tell_  that something was different. She no longer felt rotting.

"I think it worked," she said, a little stunned.

"Good," Mr. World forced out. "Now, tell me, what do you know of Wednesday's plans?"

She stared at her hands and flexed her fingers. "I know he's looking for his spear. Most likely, he already has it. I assume he's going to try to kill someone with it." Her eyes snapped up to his. "Probably you."

"Gungnir, of course," Mr. World said softly.

Laura coughed again and again and leaned away from the table just in time to spew out maggots and bile and blood and all that had been making a home in her in the time since Brigitte and the Baron had made her feel  _so_  alive. She was getting sick and tired of retching up maggots.

She clutched the side of the table once she was done and she gasped for air she didn't need, or maybe she did need it now, and then stared, wide eyed as flashes crossed her vision like a poorly edited film. Scenes from her life, her childhood, the first time she'd met Shadow, the last time they'd fucked before the robbery that went south, climbing out of the grave, a storm in Odin's name striking through the sky, killing the men on the train, sex with the Baron and Mad Sweeney…and then things that hadn't yet happened: winter coating the land in white, coyotes yipping in the desert, faces she didn't know, a battle, death  _everywhere_ big and small and not her own.

None of what she saw came in any order or any sense and by the time it stopped she was on the floor, narrowly missing the gross wet patch of maggots.

Mr. World was still seated, though he looked mildly disgusted by her. "Feeling better?"

She was shaking. "What the fuck was that?"

"Water from Urd's Well," he explained, as if she was supposed to know what that was. He saw her expression and explained. "It's water of time, not of life, but it will keep you walking and talking, turning back the clock on your decomposition."

Laura sat back in the seat, her whole body quivering. "I mean what the  _fuck_  did I just see?"

"Oh…fate perhaps. The future, if you want to call it that. A side effect of drinking from Urd's Well."

"Will that happen every time? If I need to keep drinking that shit, will it happen every time?" It wasn't so much the memories of her past that had her shaken, it was the glimpses of future that she had no context for that scared her. She felt like her brain was fucking  _violated_. She hadn't asked to see any of that.

"Unfortunately, yes."

Laura got to her feet unsteadily. "Then no fucking thank you."

"Excuse me?"

"I said no. You got something from me, but that's all I'm going to give. I'm not going to be your spy."

Mr. World pressed his lips into a thin line. "I was under the impression that you would do anything to keep living."

"Yes, but not that," Laura said, the first time she'd admitted that to herself. Perhaps her search for life wasn't meant to have a happy ending. She was already floating uselessly in a world that didn't have any place for a dead girl.

"So disappointing," Mr. World said, but he made no move to stop her as she left, remembering the way back outside.

The weather outside was cool and she could  _almost_  feel it. She blinked and the flashes passed through her mind once again. She had to use the pole of a  _tow-away zone_  sign to keep upright. The limo was gone, as was Bilquis.

Well, she was just going to have to go on the hard way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something pulled Laura toward Cairo, but she didn't know what. The visions she saw faded after time, but it had stirred up more than the maggots she'd vomited up. Her stomach was blissfully wiggle-free, but she was still far from alive.

She ended up  _not_  actually in Cairo, bypassing the town, going farther north in the state. Maybe she was being pulled back to the House on the Rock. Eventually, she felt like stopping, somewhere halfway through Illinois.

According to her latest ride, they were near Bloomington.

Laura had never had any interest in Abraham Lincoln's history here or the famous zoo on all the signs around the rest stop just outside of town, but she got out of the car she'd hitched here in and started walking. She had a keen interest in the flies that started buzzing around, but the water from Urd's Well hadn't yet worn off completely. She could almost feel herself slowly beginning to rot, though, which she hadn't felt particularly clearly before now. It was disturbing and she really hated it.

It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for.

She was making a habit of finding Sweeney sprawled out on the ground, drunk, and she wondered why the hell she kept coming back to him.

A voice in the back of her head reminded her that she'd made a deal and she still had his coin. As much as she wanted to leave and not worry about what would happen to him without it, she found herself momentarily relieved to have him in her sights again.

Laura nudged him with her boot but he didn't wake up. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he was dead. But that was  _impossible_. He looked like a complete wreck, sure, but she saw no gaping wounds.

She crouched down and tried to—gently now, since she didn't want to break his jaw—slap him awake. "Hey," she said, once or twice and a third time, a bit louder. If her heart could have hitched it would have. She didn't want him dead, she'd just wanted him to stop clouding up her emotions. If either of them was supposed to get out of their deal by dying, it was  _Laura_.

"Wake up," she demanded, shaking his shoulders. "Fuck." She whispered out the curse, bringing her fist down on his chest in one final attempt to get him to do as she said.

And then he coughed and jerked himself awake—alive?—and she hated the relief that flooded her system. She sat back on the cold pavement and watched him sit up stiffly and run his hands all around his jacket, looking for something.

"Shit," Sweeney muttered and then he seemed to see her for the first time. A glimmer of unfiltered hope in his eyes carved out a piece of her heart and she busied herself by standing up as he scooted and used the nearest building as a backrest. "What're you doing here?" He lit a cigarette.

"Saving your life, apparently." She crossed her arms, clenching her hands into fists so they wouldn't shake.

He looked at her, up and down. If she were alive, his gaze would have burned and swirled inside of her in all the right places. "I wasn't dead."

"You could have fooled me. I know a lot about being dead."

He huffed and let his head rest back against the wall. It was rare he looked up to her. She liked it. "And yet you look not dead."

"I'll do anything to stay around long enough to get my life back," she said, speaking truths without filters for the first time in a long time.

"Aye. And what did you do?"

"I told Mr. World something I probably shouldn't have. And in return, he gave me some shitty fucking water that made me puke up my guts and have visions of the future."

Sweeney raised his eyebrows a fraction.

"It won't last long. I can already feel myself," she paused, tilting her head back and sighing, "becoming more and more dead. Pretty soon I won't be able to come back."

"Are you here to decompose in front of me so I can get my coin back?" He was speaking slowly, that tiredness creeping in. He neglected any sharpness to his tone and for once, she didn't mind so much.

"I don't know why I came back," Laura said, reflexively. And then she sighed and growled in frustration. "That's a lie."

"Oh. Do tell."

 _I don't want her dead_ , he'd said, once upon a time in a house filled with white rabbits and jelly beans and Jesuses plural. "The fact that you're the only person besides me who cares if I live or not, whether or not you're just in it for your coin, you're kind of all I've got."

He frowned up at her and she wished she could read his mind for like two seconds. "So no Shadow then?"

Not exactly what she'd expected he'd say. It was her turn to frown. "Um…right, no Shadow."

"So you've taken a liking to me then?" There was the hint of life on his face in the realm of a smirk.

"Like is a strong word. And what are you? A twelve year old boy? This isn't middle school. Besides, those kinds of feelings. They're not easy for me."

"No shit." He finished off his cigarette and squashed the remnants under his thumb next to him. "Is that all? You took my coin and it nearly killed me. Think I deserve a bit more than that."

Laura was about to protest, but found no words to do so. Instead, she decided to go for the good stuff instead. "I don't care if it was magic or a load of bullshit," she sucked in a breath and avoided his eyes for a moment, "but I liked having sex with you. And I'd do it again if I could."

"Hmmph." He seemed to like that, but again, she could barely tell. He wasn't suddenly cocky and jumping at the chance to stick to her like glue until they could find her life again. Damn, she must have really fucked him over when she left, taking what was his with her. "If you could?"

"I can't…I'm not…" She waved her hands up and down. "I'm still dead. My body is…it doesn't work. I had one night of feeling alive and I'm just a dead girl again. You can touch me and I won't feel it."

He looked at her sadly, and she felt like she could physically choke on his expression, like it was reaching around her throat and squeezing.

"Let's just go with, I don't hate you and I'd let you fuck me again, and we'll go from there." She swallowed and, to stop from having to be in his line of sight, sat next to him and dug into her bag. She pulled out the vial. It looked almost the same as weeks ago when she'd gotten it and she hoped there was no expiration date on it. She handed it to him without a word.

He took it turned it over, looking at the bottle where the inscription had been. It had mistakenly gotten wet and the words had run off the label. "The Baron give you this?"

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding.

"Why haven't you drank it?"

She'd been dreading this moment ever since the thought presented itself, but there was really no choice. She'd either tell him, and he'd have an answer, or try to figure it out for her, or she really would die and that would be that. "It's missing an ingredient."

When she didn't elaborate, he glanced over at her. "And?"

She felt like she'd suddenly been thrown into some children's fairytale or some cheesy paranormal romance novel where the words about to come out of her mouth sounded like they belonged. Instead, she was sitting in an alley near a dumpster, a dead woman with flies around her head, with a centuries old leprechaun at her side.

"Two drops of blood infused with love," she said quickly, as if that would make it sound less ridiculous.

Thank fuck he didn't laugh right in her face about it, only turned the vial in his hands and frowning a little. "And if you find that, you'll drink this?"

"I mean, it's that or I fall apart and die. Either way, you get your coin back." She added that part at the end because it felt important. Maybe it was some memory of one of the visions of the future she'd seen at Mr. World's table that made her realize that his coin was actually just as valuable to him as it was to her. Not that she was going to give it back willingly unless she had breath in her lungs and blood in her veins, but at least she was attempting to empathize with him about it.

"Okay then," he said, reaching into his jacket, into that place he hid things, and pulled out a pocket knife.

"What are you doing?" she asked, watching him flip it open and carve into the tip of his thumb.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he said, annoyed.

She grabbed his arm with her superior strength to keep him from putting his bleeding thumb anywhere near her potion. "It's not going to work," Laura pointed out, because it seemed the most accurate thing to say. The obvious thing that he should  _obviously_  know.

He looked at her, eyes clear and focused, with a purpose. "You said it yourself, this is your last resort."

"Yes, but…you can't be serious." She couldn't form the words she wanted to say. She wasn't  _built_  for this sort of conversation.

Sweeney didn't hesitate any longer, using her distraction to pull the stopper from the bottle and squeeze his blood into the thin neck. It sank into the green and Laura didn't move until he put the vial in her hand and forced her fingers around it. "Drink," he told her.

"Thank you," Laura said, because she wanted to show her gratitude and if this didn't work it could very well kill her for good and it could be her last time to say it, the last time she said  _anything_. And he was deserving, considering he was the only one who kept trying to get her life back.

He nodded his head a little and waited. She lifted the bottle to eye level and shook it gently. She imagined that she could taste the rot in the back of her mouth and before she could talk herself out of it, she tipped the vial back. She could taste the potion too and it was vile. With eyes closed and the last few drops sliding down her throat, she wondered for a moment about faith and belief and she wished she had more of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How’s about that ending though! :x
> 
> Also I apologize for having zero creativity when it came to the ~magic potion~ I just had a certain scene in my head and had to make it happen.
> 
> Also Laura needs to learn that sex doesn’t equal love (she obviously has no emotional connection to sex unless it’s...y’know an emotional connection to begin with! But she probably thinks sex = love to the general person and hence this response) but she’s got a long way to go and this was as in character as I could make her confession be while being obviously non-canon in the way of the show.
> 
> And I'm gonna shut up now! Thanks for sticking with me this long!


End file.
